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Sipping Chomping and Chewing

Tag Archives: Comfort Food

You know? Like holibobs but honeymoon-bobs? Well my husband knew that’s what I meant the first time I said it but maybe that’s why he’s my husband!

When I cooked dinner last tuesday, it was the first time I had cooked since 9th April! That was our last meal at home before we left for England to wed and then off on our two week honeybobs in the Maldives. Although our honeymoon was amazing in every aspect, after that amount of time we were definitely ready to come home and I was missing Bryan (the pug) heaps!

I always have the same craving when I’ve been away from home for a while and it’s always roast chicken. I think it’s because it was the most common Sunday roast my mum would make therefore making it comfort food. When we landed late on Monday night I was just about ready for my roast chicken. Having learned early on in my Singapore experience, if you want your whole chicken to come without head and feet, then you need to pick up the chicken in the packaging which states ‘without head and feet’. This is always something I pay attention to as with the first whole chicken I bought here, I had no idea until I took the bird out of it’s packaging and placed it on a tray to marinade, much to my horror I ended up eye to eye to the clucker. As I clearly still had Maldives brain on, when I picked up my first chicken packet last week and saw it said with head and feet, I just picked up the packet in the next display not checking which parts of the anatomy were still attached. I realised my error when I opened the packet and I saw cockscomb and wattles hanging down, in a slight panic, I tried to hack off the neck with my favourite ceramic kitchen knife which my dad bought me for Christmas only to break the knife rather than the spine of the bird! Tuesday was clearly not my day. Anyhow, I stuffed my chicken with some fresh sage leaves, half a lemon and half an onion before popping in the oven at around 160 degrees for 90 minutes. We had some delicious chicken, not forgetting that lovely crispy skin, with new potatoes, green beans, roasted sweet potato and carrot. Accompanied by Bisto, as I keep forgetting to pick up gravy browning to make our passed down family recipe homemade gravy, of course we enjoyed it with a dollop of cranberry sauce.

A lot of people have a certain food from home they crave when they’ve been traveling, my husband always fancies a cheddar and branston sandwich on white crusty rolls. What’s your comfort food craving after a spell away from home?

I always have some homemade soup in the fridge or freezer. It’s often what I’ll have for lunch and I love trying out new combinations. Which is why I have decided to introduce soup of the week!

It was a couple of months ago that I started making this one and it’s become a regular. It’s great if you’ve got the sniffles as the spice from the harrissa paste helps clear out those sinuses. It’s really easy to pull together and good for you to boot! The Pumpkin I use for this soup is ‘local’ Malaysian Pumpkin. I’m not sure if it has a season here as it always seems available and so cheap. You really need a sharp knife to cut through that pumpkin skin but it’s worth the hard work for that smooth sweet taste!

You will need:

One onion, roughly chopped

25g butter

900g pumpkin, skin removed and cut into chunks

1 tsp of harissa paste, you can add more or less depending on how spicy you want to go. I used green harissa.

1 litre of hot vegetable or chicken stock

Salt and Pepper to taste

Once you have all of your ingredients prepared, heat the butter in a large saucepan on a low heat and slowly cook the onions until translucent. Next, add the harissa paste and sizzle for one minute. Add the pumpkin and stir to coat with the harissa before pouring over the hot stock and simmering with the lid on for 5 – 8 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft. Whizz through a food processor until smooth and serve with your favourite bread.